News & Analysis

In brief: Temasek’s impact wishlist

Here is what the giant investor is looking for in new impact GP relationships.

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Temasek’s Valentin (right) with New Private Markets’ senior editor Toby Mitchenall at the Impact Investor Global Summit

Singapore state investor Temasek made a splash last year with a $500 million allocation to LeapFrog Investments, marking the largest single commitment to a specialist impact investment manager. There is more impact investment to come, Benoît Valentin, deputy head of EMEA, head of PE investments and head of impact investing, said in a keynote Q&A at the Impact Investor Global Summit.

The roughly S$400 billion ($288 billion; €274 billion) fund is eyeing more direct impact investments, plus several additional GPs to back. Here’s what it’s looking for:

  • You must be an impact native fund. Temasek is looking for emerging markets, pure-play impact players – it is not interested in large-cap players with newly established impact funds.
  • Differentiation is crucial, whether in domain knowledge or in using data. “Just selling your impact story is not enough… you have to make sure your story is different from the competition,” Valentin said.
  • Tech is a must – managers who are not tech-savvy or tech-enabled will “struggle massively” to scale in Temasek’s target regions such as emerging markets, he added.